


Life A Mimicry

by SingingShantiesAllTheWay



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Bondage, Deprogramming kind of, Dubious Consent, Fingerfucking, Gaslighting, Light Bondage, Mindfuck, Oral Sex, Other, POV Second Person, Penetrative Sex, Praise Kink, Psychological Programming, Seduction, Voyeurism, basically don't read this it's problematic as fuck and you won't like it, gender not indicated, magical compulsion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:40:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23590213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingingShantiesAllTheWay/pseuds/SingingShantiesAllTheWay
Summary: "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry-" -Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills WildeIt is quite odd, isn’t it, how life deviates from one’s youthful plans?For example, one might become, wittingly or otherwise, the tool of  a sinister cult with unknown aims and a penchant for doom.
Relationships: Oscar Wilde/Original Character
Comments: 29
Kudos: 29





	1. Prologue - Dormant

**Author's Note:**

> Regarding archival tags: the line between dubcon and non-con is endlessly debated. Understanding that there is some grey area, I've erred on the side of caution and flagged the non-con archival warning. Please understand I am not interested in discourse about this at this time or in this forum.
> 
> This is written in 2nd person PoV, the person in question being an unidentified OC to (hopefully) allow you, gentle reader, easy immersion. For this reason, I have also tried to avoid gender- or sex-coded language. I would like to allow any reader who wishes to identify with the PoV character no matter their own gender expression or lack thereof.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, it is assumed
> 
> Definition:  
> "dormant": temporarily inactive and capable of being activated

It is quite odd, isn’t it, how life deviates from one’s youthful plans?

You wait in the austere and airy entryway of the Svalbard research facility, a tiny swarm of butterflies setting your insides aflutter. Years of study and preparation have led to this opportunity, and you are excited at the possibility. All that remains is a final interview with the seedbank’s director.

As excited as you are, this is not where you had ever anticipated ending up at the apex of your career trajectory. When you were much younger, you’d told your parents you wished to be an explorer, like Livingstone. Later, you changed your mind, thinking how interesting it would be to go into medicine, although the necessity of vivisection turned your stomach; perhaps your contribution would be a method of research that didn’t involve slicing open living things-

( _-it is necessary; the greater goal is paramount and so many of these little lives are merely expendable resources your matured perspective can ignore as inconsequential-_ )

You frown, banishing the intrusive thought as rapidly as you can. It is just another in a string of them recently, disturbing and uncharacteristic, and a _bloody_ nuisance. You’ve been told by a friend in the nascent field of psychology that they are not at all uncommon: a result of nervous tension seeking an outlet anywhere it can.

And certainly you have been nervous, of late. You hadn’t anticipated reading botany and taxonomy at university, but discovered that you not only enjoy it immensely, but have an unexpected talent for the field. The sudden opening for another researcher at the seedbank in Svalbard is a serendipitous one - upon learning of it, you’d immediately and eagerly applied, in hopes that your academic achievements and modest contributions since are sufficient-

( _-and a word or two from well-positioned others, of course, names respected enough to lend weight to your application but not so well known that their subsequent deaths have been unduly remarked upon-_ )

You suck in a shocked breath at this one and immediately shove it away, nauseated by your own subconscious interruption. Good _gods_ , what is _wrong_ with you?

You realise that you are fidgeting, and return your pen - a gift from a favourite professor - to your coat pocket, lest you unwittingly drop or damage it. It is fortunate that you have done so, because the sudden announcement of your name from quite close by makes you start. The page smiles, and his next words send your nervous butterflies shimmering over an underlying pool of something dark and secretly triumphant, of which you are only peripherally, fearfully aware.

“Please follow me. Doctor Pettersen is ready to see you.”

* * *

Zolf is making tea. It is, he reflects, not a task he would have foreseen himself regularly undertaking, a few short - years? No, not years, even if it feels like it. _Months_ ago. It is, however, a task that he has claimed as his own as a point of familiarity in a rapidly-degenerating world.

Besides. It has been a pleasant surprise for Zolf to learn that he brews quite a good cuppa, and that’s not a skill to be idly dismissed.

So Zolf busies himself in the small kitchen that does double (triple?) duty as a dining room and office - or at least, accessible workspace. The room of their current safehouse that has been designated as Oscar’s office is a blizzard of documents and correspondence, but Zolf is adamant about keeping the kitchen clutter-free, so Oscar has taken to doing his actual administrative work in there, essentially using the “office” as a glorified storage closet.

Accordingly, Oscar is seated at the nearby table. His head is propped in his hand, elbow in turn propped on the wooden surface. A comparatively limited sheaf of paper rests in front of him, and Oscar occasionally turns a page over, muttering to himself while he reads. He’s nearly through the stack.

Zolf puts the steeping teapot down on the table with probably more force than is strictly necessary, but he knows the sound will jar Oscar out of his reverie.

He’s right. Oscar jerks his head up, refocusing after a moment on the teapot, and then Zolf.

“So,” Zolf says mildly as he takes a seat at the table. “What do we know?”

Oscar runs a hand over his face.

“There’s a plant,” he says wearily, “at Svalbard.”

Zolf opens his mouth and Oscar lifts a forestalling hand. “I _know_ ,” he says, “and that was _not_ a deliberate pun, _thank_ you.” He doesn’t look upset about it, though. Oscar’s never upset about wordplay, whatever the source or circumstance.

“Which er... species is this one?” Zolf knows it’s a weak contribution, and that’s the point. Oscar groans and rolls his eyes, but there’s at least a little bit of a smile tugging at the tight skin of his still-recent scar before he sighs.

“Hades, looks like.”

Zolf sits back, closes his eyes. “Damn. They’re difficult.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Oscar sounds thoughtful. “Our contact isn’t certain, but suspects this one is a sleeper agent. They are either an excellent liar, or their awareness of their role has been suppressed by magic.”

Zolf _hmms_ doubtfully as he pours tea for both of them, leaving Oscar to doctor his own cup. “Would dispel-magic do the trick, then?”

Oscar shakes his head and reaches for the sugar bowl. “Probably not,” he replies. “This will be buried _quite_ deeply if that’s what we’re looking at. Layers of spellwork, from multiple sources. Tricky to untangle without... damage. Unlike our opposite number, I prefer to leave my targets in one piece.” Oscar stirs his cup gently, the spoon making a quiet tinkling sound against the edges. “But."

“But?”

“But there are... other ways of uncovering that sort of thing.” Oscar’s smile is not a pleasant one. “I don’t have magic enough to do it all. But I have magic enough to lay the groundwork, and _other_ skills to do the rest.”

Zolf’s expression must be baffled, because Oscar laughs and picks up his cup to blow across it. Steam swirls outward with his breath.

“Seduction,” Oscar explains, and coldly smiles again. Zolf shivers.

“Seduction. And control.”


	2. Planting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.” - attr. Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, ostensibly
> 
> Definitions:  
> "seed": 1) a propagative plant structure such as a spore or small dry fruit; 2) to plant  
> "plant": 1) to set into fertile soil for growth; 2) a person or object covertly placed for some hidden purpose
> 
> In which a seed is examined and a seed is planted. Or perhaps a plant is seeded.

The first time you see Oscar Wilde, you are researching the arrival of a packet of seeds from a botanist in the Canary Islands. She claims that they belong to no known genus, and thus far she appears to be correct. You have found no matching entry in Svalbard’s extensive catalogue of known flora. There is a certain thrill of academic pleasure at the prospect of recording a new entry in the codex, and your mood is accordingly light.

Your attention is snagged by someone humming, a low and pleasant melody that becomes audible alongside the main door swinging open. You don't look up. Whoever is singing crosses the foyer, their movement traceable by the gradual rise in volume of the song, and you try to tune it out and focus on your research.

The melody is difficult to ignore, however. It’s the sort of song that worms its way into the mind whether one wills it or no; the kind that lingers, wending its way through the consciousness until one finds oneself humming along without realising.

Accordingly, it tugs your attention away from your work, and you irritably look up, just in time for the song to end, to see who has brought the interruption.

Wilde is speaking in low tones to one of the senior botanists on the seedbank’s limited staff. You frown slightly, paused in your work - you’ve heard of him, of course, and he is easily recognisable. Wilde is a celebrated poet and playwright, a desirable guest at salons and society events, a frequent contributor of the most salacious gossip to a variety of publications, and the subject of a frankly improbable amount of scandal in his own right.  _ Everybody _ has heard of Oscar Wilde for one reason or another, and he is, for good or ill, a polarising personality.

Looking at him now, you can understand at least some of the general public’s fascination with the man. Wilde is an undeniably striking figure. He is standing in a shaft of pale sunlight that streams in through one of the high windows of the seedbank’s entryway. It gilds his dark hair and highlights his face - an attractive one, by any objective measure. Wilde’s posture is confident and easy, even through the heavy cold-weather clothing he wears. He is every inch a man self-possessed and comfortable in his own skin.

This goes far to explain his status as a darling of high society and low journalism. None of his public roles, however, can possibly account for his presence in Svalbard.

So what in the  _ world  _ is Wilde doing here?

Your frown is a thoughtful one as you consider this question, idly tapping your favourite pen against the volume you’ve been reading.

His conference with your colleague is a brief one, and Wilde gives the elderly man a brilliant smile. It transforms the poet’s face from mildly sardonic to, there in the cathedral-like entryway, momentarily angelic. You cannot help but stare, and abruptly, with the echo of his melody still slithering through your mind, the full impact of Oscar Wilde’s presence rolls over you like a swell of some supranormal gravity.

You look swiftly down again at the logbook you’ve been reviewing, feeling the heat of a blush rising along the back of your neck. It rides high on your cheeks and pinkens the skin near your hairline, and this is inexplicable. What kind of man engenders this sort of reaction with nothing more than a  _ smile? _ A smile, indeed, directed at someone else entirely, and half a room away.

It takes you a few moments but your work has always been something in which you could easily lose yourself, and it is not long before your composure returns to you. The botanist’s samples, you decide, are genuinely a new genus, and you close the codex with a thrill of satisfaction. Pen in hand, you pick up the packet of seeds and turn to head for your office, where you can properly catalogue the new discovery for archival.

“Excuse me.” The quiet murmur comes from unexpectedly close by, and you start, nearly dropping the seed packet. Fumbling, you manage to grab and hold onto the open end, managing not to spill any of its contents. Your pen however, (- _ gods damn it the interfering bastard what is he  _ **_doing_ ** _ here?- _ ), falls from your frantic fingers.

A slender hand darts to deftly catch your pen before it can reach the floor, even as you fluctuate between berating yourself for clumsiness, and for the darkly intrusive thought. Wilde steps into your view and offers it back to you.

“I apologise,” he tells you, “most sincerely. I had no intention of startling you.” Wilde sounds genuinely rueful, although his expression is unreadable save the faintly sardonic smirk curving his mouth. This, you realise, must be the unfortunate result of a long scar running down one side of his otherwise-handsome face. The healed scar tissue, tighter than the surrounding skin, tugs at the corner of his mouth just enough to make the smirk a semi-permanent feature.

The effect of his presence is far less intense now that he’s immediately in front of you. Wilde is still a compelling figure, but you are not, this time, overwhelmed. There is only an echo of it, a mild electric shiver when your fingers inadvertently brush, which you try to hide behind a veneer of professional disinterest.

Unexpected tactile stimulus does not generally affect you in this way.  _ Why him? _ You’ve barely met him.

You realise you are staring and hastily look away. In an attempt to cover your  _ faux pas _ and your faint flush, you busy your hands by folding over the top of the seed packet to seal it against potential spill.

“Can I help you, Mr..."

Your feigned ignorance is a farce, and an obvious one at that, but there are certain niceties to be observed, and you’ve not been properly introduced.

“Wilde,” he supplies, and offers his hand. “Oscar Wilde. I understand if you are unfamiliar with my name; my accomplishments are modest at best.”

Wilde’s smile is once again mildly sardonic, but it’s reflected in neither his tone nor his warm eyes when you look up again, and you are uncertain whether or not you are being mocked. In the interest of politesse, you determine to grant him the benefit of the doubt.

With a certain amount of trepidation, you reach to clasp the offered hand. The contact is brief, perfectly in keeping with the requirements of an introduction. Wilde’s skin is smooth, dry, warm; his grip is firm enough but not overwhelming. He does not appear to be the type to crush one’s hand in an effort to prove some idiotic ideal of dominance, for which mercy many thanks.

“I am,” you tell him, “very pleased to make your acquaintance. What can I do for you, Mr. Wilde?”

It must unquestionably be your imagination that ascribes to Wilde the slightest of pauses, the swift flick of his gaze down to your toes and up again, the briefest arch of an eyebrow and matching curl of a suggestive smile.

“I require an informed opinion,” Wilde replies smoothly. Most  _ certainly _ your imagination: there is no hesitation in his reply, nothing but politeness in his tone. “Mr. Guthrie-” Wilde gestures vaguely behind him toward where he had briefly held conference with your colleague. “-was kind enough to direct me to you. He has assured me that you are an expert in your field.”

Modesty compels you to wave this airily away, but you are in truth pleased by the endorsement from an experienced peer ( _ -senile idiot- _ ). You stamp down that thought, too, with the usual twinge of unease. You’ve not been at Svalbard long enough to really establish a solid reputation, and it’s validating to realise that your work is already considered somewhat noteworthy.

“I contribute no more than my colleagues here,” you reply. “Our work is too important to participate in the sort of academic one-upsmanship one finds in other institutions. But it was very kind of him to say so.”

You carefully tuck the packet of seeds into a pocket and your pen behind your ear, and offer Wilde what you hope is a friendly and professional smile. “Please, do go on. You’ve piqued my curiosity.”

Wilde draws from his own pocket an envelope of good quality paper, and offers it to you. “Please,” he cautions, “be  _ very _ careful with this. It is, to my knowledge, the only known sample of its kind, and I am quite certain it is unique.”

You are well aware that all too often “unique” samples brought to the attention of the Svalbard botanists are nothing more than an enthusiastic amateur’s fervent hope. You try to reserve judgment, however, as you gingerly slide a fingertip beneath the envelope’s closing flap to slip it out from where it’s been tucked beneath the top edge of the pocket.

You can feel the contents as you do this - whatever is inside, it’s good sized, far larger than most seeds, although to be sure specimens of this size are not unheard of, only rare. You tip the envelope, your cupped hand ready to catch whatever emerges. The item rasps softly against the paper as it slides out, and you catch your breath when the seed - unquestionably a seed - lands in your palm.

Wilde gently reclaims the envelope from you while you stare down at the impossible thing. You are aware that he is smiling in the periphery of your vision but the whole of your attention is focused on the unmistakably organic but impossibly  _ metallic  _ seed gleaming gently in the filtered sunlight.

“I take it,” Wilde murmurs, “that my supposition is correct? It is unique?”

“It’s magnificent,” you whisper. Holding your breath, trying to quell the trembling in your fingers, you delicately lift the seed up in front of your eyes to examine it closely. ...watching the light reflected softly from a carapace that absolutely should not exist. ...ignoring the incessant nudging of the wicked, unwanted subconscious voice suddenly clamouring for your attention (- _ that’s it! Yes! Perfect, perfect, take it, take it now don’t let it be taken again- _ )

You swallow and, visibly trembling with the effort, reach to slide the inconceivable thing back into the envelope Wilde is holding.

“Undeniably unique,” you whisper. “Would-” You swallow again and try to inject a little more volume into your suddenly-dry voice. “Would you consider donating the specimen to the seedbank? You would of- of course receive all credit, and..." The darkling voice is hissing in triumph, pressing urgently against your awareness. “-and your name would, ah- would be included as, as, as integral to the taxonomy once we are able to properly classify it-”

Wilde, thank all gods above and below, seems entirely oblivious to your sudden clumsy stammering. He carefully re-seals the envelope and tucks it into an inside pocket of his coat (- _ NO! NO, GET IT BACK STOP HIM GET IT BACK GET IT  _ **_BACK_ ** _ - _ ). You nearly sob with the effort of shoving down the frenzied voice in your head, and this time Wilde gives you a curious glance.

“Are you well?” he inquires, a thread of concern tingeing his polite question.

You shake your head, perhaps in an attempt to dislodge the upsetting intrusion, then manage a shaky half-smile. “Yes- yes,” you answer. “I’m very sorry, I- felt a bit dizzy, just now, is- is all; it happens s-s-sssometimes. Very sorry. I’m quite better now, thank you.”

Wilde tips his head to examine your face for a moment, but accepts this explanation and continues.

“I am afraid I can’t agree to a donation at this time,” he says, not keeping this quiet. Certainly it can be heard by other researchers who might be nearby. “It is, alas, not actually mine to donate. I can write to the person I represent, however, and enquire into the matter for you.”

After the briefest of hesitations, Wilde leans closer to you. Barely audibly, he whispers, “I cannot donate... but I may be able to consider an offer with remuneration attached. It would go far to convincing my contact to relinquish possession. I know this facility does not have a budget for such things but perhaps you or a colleague...?”

The hissing voice subsides a bit, its tone twisting back into triumph (- **_yes_ ** _ , yes, whatever means necessary take it have it own it bring it- _ )

-bring it where?

You blink rapidly, clearing this away, and realise that you are grasping Wilde’s hand in a parting handshake. He is smiling at you ruefully as he turns to walk away again.

You look down at your hand as Wilde leaves. There is a scrap of paper in your palm, with a time and a room number noted in rapid, slightly slurred handwriting, and the letterhead of the dockside inn at which most visitors to the town take lodging. You pocket this absently, while in your head the hissing, unsettling voice tangles ‘round the lingering melody Wilde had been humming when he arrived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things will start to get exciting in the next chapter, I promise.


	3. Germination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” - Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (probably)
> 
> Definition:  
> "germination": the process, after being seeded, of coming into existence and developing

That evening, as you mount the stairs to the inn’s second floor, the noise of the rowdy public room quickly fades to nearly nothing. The enchantments laid over the old, heavy timbers provide an admirable buffer for the inn’s temporary residents, and by the time you reach the upstairs corridor, all is silence.

Although...

No. Not  _ all _ , in fact.

You frown, slowing and softening your steps to try to identify what you have faintly heard. It sounds like... music?

Yes. Someone is singing. Someone; hah. The melody is quite similar to the one you’ve been battling in your head all day.  _ Wilde _ is singing.

Your suspicion is confirmed the closer you draw to the suite indicated in Wilde’s note. The song, muted by dense oak walls and a heavy door, nevertheless clearly emanates from within. The melody trapped in your head all day harmonises with the faintly-audible music you’re hearing now, as though they are two parts of the same song.

Maybe they are. Almost certainly they are: it’s the same singer.

As you reach the door, you realise why it is you can hear it at all: the door is open, just an inch or so. A warm shaft of lamplight slices through the aperture into the hallway outside. Wilde’s voice is recognisable now that you are close enough to clearly hear it.

He has a lovely singing voice.

There are words in the music as you approach, but they melt out of the melody while you listen, dissolving into a low, purring hum.

Without thinking about what you are doing, you press your fingertips to the door and gently push it further open. Dimly, you are aware that you should at least  _ knock _ , but... but that would...

It would interrupt the song. And that is, inexplicably, something you do not wish to do just yet.

And besides, you're expected; you are there at Wilde's invitation. Surely, that will suffice. Yes. Knocking is, at this point, superfluous. Rude, even. Yes?

Yes, of course.

The door swings open on noiseless hinges to grant you a clear view of the room inside.

Wilde is seated in a comfortable-looking armchair near the small fireplace, staring at nothing in particular and holding a pen poised over the small, leather-bound journal that lies open across his knee. His full lower lip is trapped between his teeth as he considers, perhaps, the choice of a word or a phrase, or precisely the correct imagery to etch onto the paper and into the reader’s mind. 

This is... not what you expected, and the tableau is arresting. Rather than announcing yourself, you lean on the doorframe, only watching for now, and drink him in.

The warm glow of ample lamplight bathes Wilde’s face. It illuminates the angles and planes of his features, posed at a precise three-quarter profile, as though he has deliberately positioned himself to be at his most attractive from exactly the place that you stand. Wilde's posture - lazy, languorous, more draped in the chair than actually sitting on it, is angled perfectly to showcase the contrast between his broad shoulders and lean hips. His long legs are stretched out in front of him, casually crossed at the ankles. The light falls on his elegant hands  _ just so _ , each slim and tapered finger delineated and (perhaps...) full of... promise.

In short, Oscar Wilde is just at this moment  _ breathtakingly _ alluring.

You have spent so long entranced with the long lines of his body that it is a scintillating shock when you return your attention to his face and realise that Wilde is gazing directly at you from beneath half-lowered lashes. The tiny smirk he wears betrays his amusement, and the slightly lifted eyebrow suggests that perhaps this prolonged and considered scrutiny is mutual.

He has stopped humming and you are uncertain how long the silence has stretched.

“Do come in,” he says. Wilde lowers the pen to lie cradled in the valley between the journal’s pages, and extends his hand in welcome. “Close the door behind you, if you would? The cold creeps in so quickly.”

You do as he suggests. The door latches with a gentle click that - no; of course it does not faintly echo: a log has settled in the hearth, sparks still dancing up from it to be swallowed by the flue. Your imagination, in Wilde’s presence, seems unusually overactive, prone to unprovoked fancy in a way that has not been true since childhood.

Mildly unsettled by this shift (however slight) in your internal landscape, you remove your heavy overcoat and turn aside to carefully hang it on the coat rack just inside the door. You're certain Wilde is still looking at you. Your awareness of his gaze sits on the back of your neck like a light but restraining hand.

You draw in a heavy, calming breath and turn around.

Wilde’s hand is still outstretched in open invitation. Distracted by the door latch or the fire or the ghost of music you can still faintly hear or your own racing imagination, unthinkingly you cross the room and take it.

He is  _ warm _ , and Wilde’s fingers curl around your hand, holding you... not  _ tightly _ , no. You’re certain you could easily free yourself with only a slight effort. Your hand rests in Wilde’s, feeling strangely as though it belongs to someone else, as though you are not entirely present in your own body.

What  _ is _ it about him that creates this uncertainty?

Wilde is still gazing at you. Seated, he must tilt his head back just a bit to do so, baring the long line of his throat, and you realise his cravat is missing, and his waistcoat. His shirt cuffs are open and rolled partway up his forearms, cufflinks nowhere in evidence, and - more unseemly even than this - three buttons of his expensively-tailored shirt are unfastened. You can see the hollow divot at the base of his throat, and the faint thrum of his pulse.

Wilde has, in fact, received you in a state of partial undress. You are beginning to believe that perhaps the rumors of scandal that follow in his wake are truer than you’d suspected.

( _ -fraud a scoundrel a muckraker an interfering snake- _ )

“Please,” Wilde says, and apparently does not notice the sickly expression that the thought sends flitting across your face. “Have a seat. Let me fetch you a brandy.” The warm tenor of his voice - is that  _ behind  _ you-?

No. That’s an impossibility. Wilde is firmly in front of you; he still holds your hand as he rises to his feet. Your wits, you decide, are muddled with the warmth of the room so immediately after the shock of arctic cold in the night outside. The sudden transition - it causes this, sometimes. This is not uncommon.

Wilde gently steers you to sit in the chair he has just relinquished. The seat and back still radiate the warmth of his body where he sat, a strange sort of chaste intimacy that sends your imagination spiralling.

His fingertips trail against your palm as Wilde steps away. He crosses to the sideboard, and while his back is to you, you turn your hand palm-up, half expecting to see some lingering mark impressed upon your skin by his touch. You can still  _ feel _ it, a tangible, fine line of heat where each finger had briefly lain.

A tumbler appears in front of your face, held by those same long and elegant fingers, and you look up. Wilde’s face is half-shadowed by his unbound hair, but you can see the amused curve of his lips.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Wilde murmurs as you take the brandy from him. “You seemed lost in them. Were they interesting?”

You hold the glass in both hands like a talisman.

“Not- particularly,” you answer. Your voice, to your ears, sounds muted, as though the air in the room is somehow denser and more difficult for sound to penetrate. The music, though... that is still faintly audible: a ghost of sound forever at the edge of your hearing. After a moment, you succumb to the impulse to all but soundlessly hum along.

“I find that difficult to believe,” Wilde replies as he settles into the chair across from you. He swirls the amber contents of his tumbler before he lifts it to his lips. Something in the simple circular motion of his hand is  _ fascinating _ ; your gaze is drawn there and remains until Wilde lowers the glass again.

You lick your dry lips and try again. “I was, ah. Reviewing the terms of our discussion. Earlier.”

An obvious untruth, but Wilde merely gives you an unforced smile, only slightly hampered by the slim stripe of scar tissue. “Oh? Have you reached a conclusion?”

You draw a breath to respond, and choke on the unspoken words.

There are fingers lightly sliding over your hair, a single gliding sweep back from your hairline, petting you like a cat. You jerk to your feet, whipping around to confront whoever is standing behind you-

-the room is empty, save you and Wilde.

( _ -trick it’s a trick it’s a trap something is wrong leave get out kill him get the seed and get out- _ )

“Is... something the matter? Are you quite well?”

Wilde’s voice, concerned. You shake your head, not in negation but in rising panic. The dark thought is frantic, and it grates sickeningly against the insistent melody still whispering through your mind.

“I don’t... I’m fine,” you lie, and turn around again to sink back into the chair. “I’m fine. Please don’t trouble yourself.”

Wilde sets aside his drink and gets to his feet. The thoughts that flit through your head, this close to him, are your own, and the relief nearly makes you sob. His hands ( _ gods he is so warm _ ) gently cup your face to tilt your chin up, and Wilde peers intently into your eyes ( _ so close he’s so close what colour are his eyes...? _ ). His brow is furrowed in what must be concern, although Wilde is bent closely enough that it’s difficult to discern his actual expression, closely enough that his eyes ( _ what  _ **_colour_ ** _ are they? _ ) dominate your field of vision.

“You  _ aren’t  _ well,” Wilde murmurs. His voice curls around you like the warm firelight and his words soak through the fog beginning to creep through your mind. They hook themselves into the melody still softly swimming there, unnoticeably translating themselves into something like lyrics. Softly, they repeat themselves until they are pure nonsense, endless and muffling the viciousness of darker thoughts.  _ You aren’t well you aren’t well you aren’t you aren’t you well aren’t you aren’t well you well aren’t you well aren’t well you well aren’t- _

It is, you realise even through the rising muzziness, the first time you have been free of the hateful intrusiveness for as long as you can remember. It’s dizzying.

You can feel the soothing glide of Wilde’s thumbs over your cheeks, the firmer pressure of fingertips against your temples and in your hair, the heat of his palms cradling your jaw. You draw a breath and find that you have no words to shape around it.

Wilde’s hands fall away from your face. He takes the untouched brandy from your unresisting grasp and sets it aside with his own, then grasps your hand and draws you to your feet.

"We can discuss business in a little while," he tells you firmly. Wilde encloses your hand in his, the other pressing gently but irresistibly at the small of your back to urge you forward. "You should lie down first, and recover from this little turn, whatever it has been. I insist."

Wilde guides you across the room, brushing aside your halfhearted protestations. "I insist," he repeats gently. "It is my duty as a gentleman to assist a friend in need. Shall I call for a physician?"

You do not immediately reply, your thoughts having snagged on the word, "friend", that Wilde spoke. Inexplicable. A single conversation and ten surreal minutes in a sitting room do not a friendship make.

...do they? Frowning, you peer at Wilde sidelong as he guides you to sit on the edge of a settee beneath the window.

Wilde crouches down before you and swiftly but with care removes first one of your shoes and then the other. From the floor, he looks up at you. "Do you require a doctor's care?" he asks again softly.

You stare at him. Here, you are outside the immediate warmth and light of the fireplace, sitting in the shadows which gather beyond its reach. There are lamps, but they are... dim. Their light does not seem to illuminate as well as it ought.

Wilde gets to his feet.

"I shall take that to mean you do not," he says. “Let me help you to lie down.”

He is quite tall, you realise; standing, relative to your seated height, his hips are at eye-level. The abrupt realisation of this sends embarrassment ( _ is it embarrassment? _ ) shimmering just under your skin and you lift your gaze to stare up at Wilde’s face instead.

The angles of his chin and jaw are sharply defined from this perspective, as is the patrician line of his nose. Wilde is looking down at you with half-lidded eyes and a serene expression as he bends closer. You feel the warmth of his hand at one side of your neck, supporting your head as he urges you to lie down onto your side on the plush velvet.

You close your eyes until a sudden whirl of dizziness passes. Your gaze, when you open them again, refocuses on the floor. There is a crack in the wood, narrow and winding and oddly captivating. You follow its path through the wood grain until it finds its terminus in the fingerprint-whorl of a knot in the timber, and idly stare at this while your focus shifts just slightly in and out. It makes the swirling shape resemble nothing so much as an intently staring eye.

The upholstered seat dips slightly when Wilde sits down as well, just beside you at the edge of the settee. You can feel the warmth of his back against your belly, and for a moment the music ( _ -aren’t well you well aren’t you well aren’t well you- _ ) seems louder, a faint swell of it there and gone.

There is a touch against your temple. Wilde’s fingertips are still warm, combing your hair back from your face. It sends a brief glissade of electricity sparking along your nerves, causing you to shift uncomfortably, instinctively trying to find a way to ground it.

“Shhhh. I know,” he murmurs. So quiet, Wilde’s voice. But so  _ present _ . “I know. You aren’t feeling well.” ( _ -well aren’t feeling you aren’t you well- _ ) “I’m right here; I’ll sit with you until it passes.”

It.

It is.

It...

It is comforting, in some strange way, and you do not examine this. However inexplicable it may be, it has at least silenced the  _ thoughts _ . Wilde continues speaking to you, the same calm and soft tone one might use for a child sleepless from nightmares.

"Is this a common fugue?" It is not a question to which Wilde expects an answer, made clear as you shift to try to look at him, a response on your tongue. He leans to press a fingertip briefly against your lips.

"No," Wilde whispers. The long fingers of his other hand continue to comb slowly through your hair. "Be still. Perhaps I can help. Will you permit me to try?"

You hesitate. Everything about this situation falls well outside the bounds of normal propriety. That fact scrapes uneasily against your drowsy impulse to acquiesce; dredges up a sickly echo of the intrusive not-your-voice. It’s difficult to think. Slow. Too much effort.

_ (-you aren’t well- _ )

But.

You push through your treacle-thick and sludgy mind, chasing the thought.

But what. -if he  _ can _ help-?

The fingers in your hair curl slightly, adding the merest hint of trimmed fingernails along your scalp, and a breath eases past your open lips. The last of your indecision, already crumbling, falters and topples in the face of Wilde’s gently unrelenting attention.

You nod. You can hear the smile in Wilde’s voice when he answers.

“Excellent.”


	4. Ripening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.” - Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, most likely
> 
> Definition:  
> "ripening": to make ripe; to bring toward completeness or perfection

Wilde’s hand flattens to stroke your hair one more time, and then the settee’s seat shifts again as he gets to his feet.

“Close your eyes.”

Wilde’s voice is still calm, still soft, but it has acquired an edge of command to underpin it, and it is so easy, so  _ natural _ to bend to his direction. Obediently, you do as he has asked, and close your eyes.

There are quiet noises as Wilde moves about the room. You cannot identify them with any real sense of accuracy: generic sounds of the fabric of his clothing rustling as he moves; the muffled tread of his shoes over the thick rug. You become aware of the muted tick-tick-tick of a clock somewhere, patiently counting the seconds into minutes that you have long since lost track of.

There is the swift rasp of a match being struck, immediately followed by the acrid and unmistakable scent of sulfur and smoke. Wilde has lit another lantern, perhaps, or a candle.

Wilde’s voice is quite close when he speaks again, and the ambient glow of the room- amber behind your closed eyelids- rises. The new-lit candle, probably, being set on the nearby side table.

“I ask you,” Wilde murmurs, “to trust me.” His thumb smooths over your face again; his fingertips hover for a breathless moment over your pulse. “Will you trust me?”

You do not answer. It is such an unexpected question, pregnant with unspoken possibilities for good or ill, and you are already half-lost in a warm wash of uncertainty.

Perhaps he reads this in your face, because Wilde rests his mouth like a breath against the shell of your ear and whispers, “I have no intention of harming you.” You can feel the curve of his lips as he smiles. “You have my word as a gentleman.”

Your breathing stills in that moment. The  _ room _ stills; there is a sense that the second now counted by the clock hangs poised and listening. You can feel, even with your eyes closed, the warm weight of him bent over you.

Wilde does not ask again, not in words. He only gives a warm, inquisitive hum that reverberates in your ear and down your spine, the question implicit.

You nod. Just once.  _ Yes _ .

The answering whisper uncurls against your skin, entwines with the melodic ouroboros wending its way through your muzzy mind. 

“ _ Excellent.” _

( _ -excellent you well you aren’t excellent you well aren’t- _ )

“Trust me.”

Wilde’s soft voice curls almost tangibly around you. It is not a question this time, but another command. Mildly murmured though it is, it holds an unyielding undercurrent of compulsion.

“I gave you my word,” Wilde reminds you. He tips your chin upward with two fingertips. “Leave yourself in my hands. No, no-” He lightly touches your fluttering eyelids. “For now, leave your eyes closed.”

Your breath leaves you in a slow exhalation, and guided by Wilde’s directive, you let stillness fill the space it leaves behind.    
The edges of your will soften as Wilde gently but inexorably pushes it aside, superseded with his own.

“Good.” Wilde’s hands vanish from your skin. “Very good.” Something, some heretofore unexpected sliver of your mind thrills to this. “I am going to move you. I want you to remain just as you are. Quiet... still... soft.  _ Trust me _ .”

( _ -trust you well aren’t you trust well feeling aren’t you trust- _ )

Right now, you can do nothing else. The nonsense song spirals lazily through your awareness, tugging you with it, and what little is left over is completely Wilde’s to direct. He has said you will stay pliant and so, biddable, you do.

Wilde’s hair brushes your face as he bends over you, and you feel his hands slide beneath you to lift your limp body. He supports your weight entirely as he settles you back into a seated position; carefully, Wilde rests your head against the high settee back.

He is, you realise distractedly, stronger than he looks.

Wilde’s touch disappears and you can hear his unhurried steps across the room. There is a pause, and then the footfalls return. Once again, the seat dips as Wilde sits beside you. There is a pressure against your leg - Wilde’s knee, it occurs to you belatedly; he must be angled toward you.

Gently, Wilde lifts your hand and rests it across his thigh, and something slippery and cool coils around your wrist. It’s snug without being  _ tight _ . You can feel beneath the fabric of his trousers the flexion of the muscles in his thigh as Wilde leans to lift your other hand. Another slip of cool and slippery  _ something _ wraps around that wrist as well, and Wilde places both of your hands in your lap.

“You’re doing well,” Wilde tells you, a world of warmth in his rich voice, and something deeply buried in some unlit corner of your mind shivers. For a moment you think it might be whatever pool of darkness spawns the intrusive thoughts you’ve been battling, but no: this is not that. Older. Deeper still.

The settee shifts when Wilde stands. Then it dips beneath you as without warning you feel the pressure of  _ both  _ his knees, one at either side of your thighs: Wilde is straddling your lap, you realise, and a swift shock of adrenaline makes your pulse spike.

It must be visible on your face, because Wilde makes some soothing noise, and his fingertips glide briefly over your face.

“Shhh. Only for a moment, I promise.”

Wilde is not actually resting his weight on you, you realise. He is instead kneeling on the settee, and you just happen to be between his legs as he does so.

( _ -shh well you only well aren’t you promise you feeling aren’t trust- _ )

His hands are warm when they lift yours from your lap. You can feel the silken- ( _ silk yes it’s silk _ ) cords slithering against your skin as he gently raises your arms over your head. There is a soft tug at your wrists; the looped bindings tighten there, holding without hurting, and Wilde’s hands fall away.

Yours do not. The silk wrapped around your wrists holds your hands aloft, and you make some small noise of protest-

-it is not protest. Not really.

Wilde’s fingertips glide down your forearms as he settles back again; they drag along the undersides of your arms and then vanish. Wilde still supports his own weight on either side of you, but you are supremely aware of his presence.

“Let’s take a moment,” Wilde continues. “So we are clear: I shall be taking them frequently. If I am to assist you, I must be certain of your comfort at each step.”

His hands come to rest against your abdomen. His fingertips tap thoughtfully against the gentle ridge of the lowest of your ribs while he continues. “Are you uncomfortable in any way?”

You hesitate, then shake your head. No. No, you are not uncomfortable. Your nerves are a warm thrum throughout your body and with your eyes closed, your skin seems impossibly sensitive to every slightest touch - of your clothing, of his fingers, of the air around you both. But not uncomfortable.

Wilde purrs, “Very good. Shall I continue?”

Your mouth is dry when you try to answer, entirely too dry to speak aloud. Instead, you nod, feeling the embroidered edge of the settee’s upholstered back catch gently in your hair and release.

“ _ Very _ good.” Wilde’s weight slides backward off the settee, off of you. Instinctively, you pull against the silk bindings, and Wilde’s hands wrap around your wrists.

“Don’t,” he admonishes. “The knots are good ones; I learned from a professional. If you pull, they will only tighten, and you will do yourself an injury. I gave you my word... please do not make a liar of me?”

( _ -well you liar you aren’t feeling promise you promise you trust liar aren’t- _ )

It is phrased as a question; it  _ sounds _ like a question. The upward inflection tugs Wilde’s words into the realm of enquiry and yet; and  _ yet _ ; there is no question that it is a command.

There is no question that you will obey it.

The tension in your arms and shoulders eases; you let go of the silk and let your arms go limp, and Wilde, accordingly, releases your wrists and stands back.

“Thank you, pet.”

( _ -liar pet you aren’t feeling- _ )

Not unpleasantly, another frisson of...  _ something _ ... ripples through the back of your mind. Once again, it is not the poisonous ripple of not-you but some more instinctive, more natural thing. It is not pleasure, but it is... something like it. The mystery there is beginning to send seeking tendrils of itself out, coaxed by Wilde into bashfully, slowly blooming from dormancy.

You hear the rustle of fabric moving, and then Wilde’s hands, both of them, encircle your ankle, palms and fingers wrapped like a cuff around it. The knowledge of what he is doing is a weight in your belly: disquieting. Anticipatory. Almost -  _ almost - _ wanting.

You recognise the cool glide of silk immediately this time. Wilde loops it expertly around your ankle, gives it a light, teasing tug that makes your calf tense. His lips graze your skin just above the silken wrap, and then he gently but firmly draws your leg to the side. You feel the encircling silk pulled once or twice more, and then once again, Wilde’s hands vanish, leaving your ankle bound to one of the settee’s short legs.

Not tightly. Not immovably: there is a little give, enough that you do not feel trapped.

Not enough to free yourself. The muscles in your leg tense as you try the limits of the binding, and Wilde rests one hand on your knee, gently pressing. 

“No, pet,” he whispers. “It is the same knot. Stay as you are, stay... soft. And it will hurt you not at all.”

You do as he suggests.

_ Suggests _ . No. Gently but incontrovertibly commands.

With deliberate care, Wilde gently slides your other leg to the side, and binds your ankle with the same swift lacing and knotting of silk. You swallow. It is... an exceedingly vulnerable posture, with your legs splayed, your arms above your head. It leaves you feeling exposed even with clothing protecting your modesty.

Wilde must still be kneeling on the floor between your legs; you haven’t heard him move. It gives him an unhindered view of you, and you feel the heat of a blush climbing your throat, staining your face pink. The lyrical melody still twining its way gently through your mind rises for a brief moment, tugging your attention to itself before easing back again. ( _ -aren’t well you promise aren’t you excellent feeling you trust- _ ) 

Wilde’s low laugh touches the tentatively seeking riddle in your mind, sending up a skirling internal shiver that works its way out to your skin, and your exhalation carries the softest of moans.

There is something else, something that you do not examine but which almost feels like want.

No. Not  _ almost _ . You are beyond that particular horizon, by now.

You hear the rustle of Wilde’s clothing as he gets to his feet; you follow the sound of his footfalls as he crosses the room. His voice reaches you from wherever it is he is standing, and it is impossible to tell where; there are no other clues for context.

With no indication of his next actions, you settle back into drowsy uncertainty.

“Let us pause again, pet. Yes?”

Wilde’s tone is eminently reasonable, reassuringly calm. You draw a shallow breath and whisper, “...yes.”

“Excellent.” You can hear his smile. “So, then: are you uncomfortable in any way?”

You shake your head. Your mouth forms the word,  _ no _ , but you can make no sound to push it out.

“Shall I continue?”

Yes. Yes. You nod, then let your head sink against the cushioned back of the settee with your next exhalation. You’d not realised the tension you have kept in your neck until you release it, and it is a relief to let it go.

Footsteps again, and once more you feel the slight shift of the seat as Wilde perches at its edge.

“Now,” Wilde says quietly. “I must again emphasize:  _ I gave you my word _ . I will not harm you. You must trust me, and it may be difficult for you now, for a moment or two.”

Your uncertainty redefines itself as unease, and you make some small sound of misgiving. Wilde’s weight shifts as he leans from where he sits to brush the backs of his fingers against your cheek. It’s a very nearly tender gesture.

“Only a moment or two, pet.” Wilde’s touch falls away and he stands. You follow his voice as he moves to kneel beside one bound foot. “A moment or two and it is done, and you will be entirely unharmed.”

There is a pause during which you feel his fingertips slip beneath the fabric covering your ankle. He tugs it gently; you feel acutely the slide of it against your skin.

“Do you trust me?” Wilde’s murmur climbs your body like your blush.

You hesitate. Wilde rests the heel of his hand against your ankle, not pressing, not grasping, merely... present.

( _ -trust you trust aren’t feeling you well- _ )

You nod.

Wilde says nothing further. His touch lifts away and is replaced with something... cold.

Metallic.

Sharp.

You suck in a shocked breath at the abrupt contrast, and Wilde gives you no time to acclimate. The cold metal slides upward along your shin and you feel pressure as he bears down; you hear a soft  _ shriiiiik  _ of fabric parting and every muscle in your body tenses. You audibly whimper, the strongest sound you have yet managed.

Wilde, unaffected by your distress, glides the scissors up from your ankles in turn, over your calves and thighs and hips and abdomen; over your chest and down your arms to your wrists, cutting away your clothing with swift efficiency.

“Don’t concern yourself,” Wilde says smoothly as he works, “about your clothing. I have spare trousers and a shirt that will suffice until you return home. And I will, of course, recompense you for the expense of replacing these.”

Wilde gives a final snip at the base of your throat. The devilishly sharp tip of the scissors just barely nick your skin, and the last of your clothing falls away.

You are shivering, as much from the sudden humiliation of exposure as from the slightly chilly air. Wilde abandons you on the settee and his footfalls again pass toward the other side of the room, perhaps to return the scissors to whatever place he had retrieved them from.

When Wilde stops moving, the room is nearly silent. The soft ticking of the clock had been lost to you in the mélange of other sensory input, but in the hush now it’s all you can focus on as you strain to catch any hint of what Wilde is doing, where he is.

_ Where is he? _

In the silence, without Wilde’s compelling presence, your attention is tugged back to the faint but unending music still wending its way through your mind.

The clock’s gentle  _ tick...tick...tick _ worms its way into the looping music, providing a tempo for the melody and twining harmonies and nonsense lyrics already embedded in your mind. It’s very nearly a song now.

( _ -well excellent feeling you trust aren’t liar please you well aren’t you- _ )

The shivering burrows beneath your skin, sinks down through tendon and muscle into your bones, deep into the core of you, and you bite your lip against a soft cry of- of what? Unease? Apprehension?

Anticipation?

Wilde’s voice, when it comes, reaches you from immediately beside the settee. The rich tenor is nearly a purr.

“Oh, pet. You’re doing  _ so well _ ,” he assures you once again. And once again the unexamined, warm mystery within you- larger now, still gradually unfurling from the buried sliver of your mind in which it had been dwelling- thrills to it. Wilde’s praise makes your mind  _ sing _ .

“You see? You are unharmed.” Wilde settles to a seat beside you. You feel his body aligned with yours, thigh to thigh, the fabric of his shirt just brushing your side. “Thank you, my dear. You’re doing admirably.”

Wilde delicately touches your face. He glides the back of his fingers along your chin, your jaw, before his fingertips uncurl to touch the thrum of your pulse in your throat. They remain there.

“You may open your eyes, if you wish.”

Your surroundings are at first blurry when you obediently do so. The distant fireplace is a warm and out-of-focus glow; the rest of the room merely darkness around it. After a moment, you are able to focus more clearly, and you tip your head back to look above you, acutely aware of the press of Wilde’s fingertips to your throat as you do so. Your hands are bound by glossy black silk to a simple iron ring beside the window, meant to hold the heavy curtains back.

Wilde, seated beside you and half turned to face you, makes a small, pleased hum of approval, and your attention drops to him instead. He supports himself on one bent arm, his elbow propped against the seat back, his head resting against his palm. His other hand traces a caressing line along your throat, following the arterial path. Wilde observes with hooded eyes and a small smile every fractional shift in your expression.

“Shall we take another pause, lovely?”

Wilde’s eyes are dark in the dim and flickering light. The upward tilt of his mouth suggests... suggests a great many things, in fact, and you feel again the immense and inexplicable personal gravity that you had noticed upon first seeing him.

“Yes,” Wilde murmurs. His fingertips slide over your jaw, tap their way up your cheek to your temple, and tangle loosely in your hair. Your audible intake of breath deepens the secretive smile. “Yes. Another pause, I think.”

He dips his head and his loose hair brushes your face as he touches his lips to your ear.

“Are you,” Wilde whispers gently, “uncomfortable?” Graceful fingers lightly drag over your scalp, making you gasp. “Shall I continue?”

( _ -aren’t you trust you shh well continue- _ )

You are still shivering, intensely aware of every inch of your unclothed skin. The silk at your ankles tightens as you instinctively try to draw your knees together; it stymies your attempt, leaving you intimately exposed to the cool air.

“Shall I continue?”

( _ -well continue aren’t you feeling pet you promise excellent you trust shall I- _ )

The fingers in your hair drift down to glide over the rim of your ear. They tap at the sensitive, half-hidden indentation just behind the hinge of your jaw, just below your ear. Your gasp reverses, leaves you in a sigh that holds the promise of a whimper.

“Shall I continue, pet?”

( _ -aren’t you well trust you excellent liar shh you well you aren’t promise only feeling you continue- _ )

Clever fingers glide along your jaw, slip over the apex curve of your chin, come to lightly rest just beneath your trembling lower lip. Wilde’s voice is barely a breath, warm against your ear.

_ “ _ Lovely. Lovely, you are doing so well, I am so very pleased.”

It should not be this way, your reaction; you should not part your lips to pull in a tremulous breath; you should not tip your chin upward just that tiny bit further. Wilde’s praise should not spark through your blood like a hint of wildfire.

You should not be  _ relieved _ as the gentle mystery inside you finally,  _ finally _ perfectly unfurls like a blossom of smoky ink in water and soaks through your every cell, trailing a hint of glistening ecstasy in its wake.

The drowsy warmth it brings should not feel so  _ right _ .

Wilde’s mouth moves away from your ear. You feel his hair brush your face and realise that you have closed your eyes again ( _ when did you close your eyes? _ ). It requires effort to open them, effort to stare through your lashes at Wilde’s ( _ beautiful frightening compelling _ ) face.

One more faintest of whispers:  _ “Shall I continue?” _

( _ -well you shall continue- _ )

Wilde does not say another word, but you are nevertheless acutely aware of the pressure of his expectancy. He waits in perfect stillness: fingertips just brushing the swell of your lower lip, sharply intent eyes holding your gaze pinned, as though he is watching the tableau of your thoughts with no more effort than he would read a letter.

Wilde is waiting for an answer.

Your tongue, barely a flicker over your lips, does nothing to soothe their dryness.

( _ -aren’t continue pet you aren’t feeling you well you continue trust I promise you aren’t well liar shall I excellent you well feeling well shh promise you promise well you aren’t continue aren’t you excellent- _ )

“ _ Yes _ .”

You form the shape of the word with no voice behind it, but Wilde smiles beatifically.

“Well done,” Wilde murmurs. He presses just the tip of his forefinger to your lips as though shushing a fretful child. “Well done, lovely. I am  _ so  _ pleased with you.”

This time, when your breath leaves you, it carries with it not a whimper but a quiet moan. A moment’s approval, and you are nearly undone.

The fingertip against your lips slips between them and Wilde’s thumb moves to center just beneath your chin. You can feel it pressing just a little too far forward - not compromising your airway in any real way, merely an implicit threat. You cannot prevent a reflexive swallow, feeling the muscles of your throat push in protest against that pressure.

“Shhhh,” Wilde murmurs, and nudges your mouth just that little bit further open. “I gave you my word, pet. Remember that.”

Your acquiescent breath flows over his hand when you release it, and in silent approval Wilde removes his thumb from beneath your chin.

“Don’t close your mouth.”

You feel his touch at just the tip of your tongue at first, and then patiently easing further. Wilde presses down gently as he invades your mouth with a single elegant digit. Just as with his thumb, you cannot help the reflexive, protesting upward push of your tongue, and it is met with equal pressure from Wilde.

“No,” he says quietly and firmly, and once more Wilde’s velvet voice couches a steely command at the center of it which arrows straight to your core. “You must trust me, lovely.  _ You will come to no harm,  _ remember that.”

It is a struggle - Wilde’s will through yours against the instincts your body strains to obey - but you manage, finally, to flatten your tongue beneath his finger, breathing shallowly around his hand.

Wilde’s fingertip rests now at the back of your tongue, curved gently downward to apply light pressure. You can feel this acutely, and the urge to swallow is immense. Wilde’s thumb smooths your cheek.

“Well done,” he whispers. Your tongue trembles when Wilde presses down more firmly; he steadily increases the pressure at the back of your tongue while you fight your desperate urge to push back, or to gag.

Beside you, watching your face intently, Wilde allows a lazy half-smile. “ _ Very _ well done. Swallow, pet.”

You do so  _ immediately _ , and feel as you do the sinuous slide of Wilde’s slender finger fully into your mouth until he can press no further forward. You swallow again, feeling your throat clench and release around the invasion; swallow again and again, while Wilde strokes your cheek with his thumb.

Mercifully, he does not linger. Only moments later Wilde withdraws his finger from your mouth and draws with it a wet line down your chin. You swallow again and, feeling your throat finally empty, give a shuddering sigh and for a moment close your eyes.

Beside you, Wilde pushes off the back of the settee to kneel, rather than sit, beside you.

“That was  _ perfect _ ,” he tells you, occasioning yet another vibrant thrill of heat through your body. Wilde trails one hand over your shoulder; drags the tips of his fingers down your chest, his touch centered over your breastbone; moves lower and passes a palm over your ribs, down your side to your hip. The intensity with which Wilde watches your face is nearly tangible. You’re uncertain whether it is this or the patient ( _ possessive _ ) touch which raises gooseflesh over the entirety of your nude body.

Wilde’s laugh is a satisfied, low purr. He eases one knee over your hips to once more straddle you, curving his hands over your waist. Gently, Wilde sweeps his thumbs over your skin, then bends forward. The fine ends of his long hair feel as coolly silken on your skin as the bindings on your ankles and wrists. Wilde lifts his gaze to your face without lifting his head and your breath catches at the flicker of something  _ dark _ behind his eyes.

His smile is not reassuring.

Wilde trails his hair and his hands both along your body as he eases himself backward and down from the settee to the floor, to kneel between your splayed-open legs. You try, you  _ try _ not to look at him but this is an impossibility. You stare down the expanse of your body to meet his gaze where he stares back at you with an expression you cannot read.

“Stay still,” Wilde whispers, and the heat of his breath is a torment.

Wilde’s head dips and yours immediately falls back, because his tongue is hot and slick between your thighs; invasive and intimate. The sudden depth of sensation raises a shiver that chases itself over your skin, and your breath shortens to swift, shallow gasps that bring no relief.

You can feel Wilde’s hands high on your inner thighs. His thumbs caress the shallow dip where each thigh finds its terminus, and the unyielding barriers of his forearms hold your legs open to prevent any attempt to restrict his access to you.

Not that it’s necessary. The taut silk binding your ankles already does admirable work in that regard.

Wilde flattens his tongue against you and licks a languid stripe upward along every inch of you that he can reach. You gasp; the muscles in your thighs tense against his restraining arms, and you feel a movement of his mouth that must be a smile.

He is humming, you become dimly aware. You feel it more than hear it, a low and insistent vibration through your body wherever Wilde’s mouth touches you. The song in your head follows it, molds itself to the melody that you can’t quite hear but nevertheless  _ know _ . In some indefinable way, this last humming harmony from Wilde makes the song... complete.

The music, fully realised, is enthralling.

It feels like gentle hands have cupped themselves around you - the essential core of you, separate from your body, from your racing thoughts and hectic emotions - and now cradle you securely and in isolation. It feels.

Like.

Like...

( _ -you i trust you i trust you continue i trust- _ )

Safety.


	5. Harvest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us.” - Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, in theory
> 
> Definitions:  
> "harvest": 1) a matured or finished product; 2) to gather in or reap; 3) to remove or extract

Wilde’s smile broadens; you can feel it.

He lifts his head, just a little, just enough that you can hear him when he speaks.

“You are  _ perfect _ , pet.”

A shiver runs riot over your bare skin, chasing itself down your spine and across your belly.

“I am going to continue,” Wilde says softly. “There are certain mysteries we must uncover, and we will explore this wilderness together.” You can hear his smile in the timbre of his quiet voice. “There are two possibilities locked somewhere in your mind... let us discover which one is true.”

He does not give you time to parse the meaning of these incomprehensible utterances. Wilde nuzzles the inside of your thigh and speaks against your skin. “You will not speak. You will not move. I want you to do only one thing for me, lovely; can you do that?”

Without waiting for an answer, Wilde dips his head to dart his tongue over your desperately sensitive skin.

“I want you to  _ feel _ . That’s all. Feel what I am doing, and listen to the words I speak, and don’t. Fight. Yourself.”

Each of those last words is punctuated by another tiny lick, and you nearly choke on the moan you are trying not to release.

Wilde flattens his tongue against you and licks another long, lazy ribbon upward between your thighs, as far as he can reach, tasting every part of you. And again. And again. On the next pass, his tongue delicately flicks over your entrance. Your hands fist around the restraining lines of silk that lie across your palms and this time it is not a smile but a low, thrumming laugh that sets your skin alight.

Dimly, you can hear him speaking. It is difficult to make out words... you strain your ears, reaching for meaning.

“You were sent here.”

_ The words slip through your mind, nearly as nonsensical as the song that surrounds you, and they touch something dark, something that doesn’t belong there; they send a greasy ripple outward to its edges and something in the inky pool stirs. And all of this is... pleasantly muted, kept separate from you by the cocooning shelter of unending melody. _

Again, Wilde flattens his tongue against you, licks upward, and this time follows this same wet path back down. You suck in a sharp breath when he tongues your entrance, narrowing his focus to this alone.

“You are not who you say you are.”

_ The ripple widens, oily ring following oily ring endlessly outward as the darkness stirs. _

You cry out softly when Wilde  _ stops _ , and you lift your head to stare at him down the line of your body. Wilde is looking back at you, studying your face. His expression is thoughtful.

“...you  _ don’t know _ , do you?” The merest whisper, and it is again not a question to which Wilde expects an answer. “Well. That answers the first question. Let us seek answers to the rest.” He brings a hand up to flatten his warm palm against your abdomen, just above your hip.

“Just feel,” Wilde murmurs, and this at least is clearly audible. His voice is calm. Controlled ( _ controlling _ ). Eminently reasonable.

You can feel each of Wilde’s fingertips as though they are scorching your skin. His palm cannot possibly be as heavy as it feels, holding you in place as surely as any silken bond.

Wilde lowers his head. Gently, he nuzzles where he has licked, where you are still damp from his tongue.

“Someone has sent you here.”

_ Something wakes beneath the ripples, something monstrous and sick. _

And your breath leaves you in a rush when, with no further warning, he plunges his tongue inside you.

Wilde’s mouth is  _ maddening _ . You struggle to remember how to breathe while he meticulously and relentlessly coaxes you open with a tongue alternately serpentine and phallic. 

“You are here for a reason.”

_ The monstrous thing swells, expanding in your mind until it meets the impenetrable barrier of --music?-- holding you safe; it retreats as though burned. _

You are not inexperienced, but no previous encounter has ever brought you to the shivering dizziness which Wilde is accomplishing. The frustration of restraint is exhausting: your arms, your legs, your aching core are sore and trembling from fruitlessly straining against the silken bonds holding you immobile.

“You are not who you think you are.”

_ Heaving like a bellows, the looming ugliness in your mind surges once again, struggling to break the boundary of eerie song, struggling to be  _ **_known._ ** _ It stays there, an unstoppable force against the immovable object that protects you, and the pressure is going to tear you apart- _

From somewhere there is a high, softly keening sound that you belatedly realise is your own voice, thin with desperation.

Wilde relents. 

He gives a final, delicate flick of his tongue at your entrance, presses a kiss to your thigh, and settles back on his haunches. He gazes at your trembling body, leisurely examining every inch of you. You are flushed with heat and exertion, and the frank intensity of his inspection deepens the pink staining your skin.

Finally, Wilde frees a contented sigh. “I am,” he says to you, “so pleased with you, lovely. You are doing  _ remarkably _ well.”

The sinuous song in your head brightens in response to his praise, a brief billow of warmth that momentarily blurs the presence of the awful darkness straining against it.

“I am going to unbind you,” Wilde continues calmly, evenly. You can already feel movement in the silk encircling one ankle as he begins untying the knot that holds you fast. “Remain still.”

You are  _ reeling _ . Overstimulation is easing out of your body far too slowly; his admonishment is entirely unnecessary. You couldn’t move if you wanted to.

Wilde unwraps your ankle and moves to the other, patiently repeating the process until that leg, too, is unbound. For each wrist as well, Wilde undoes the work of immobility, and finally drapes the long black cords over his neck like a collection of tailor’s measures.

You remain unmoving as directed while Wilde goes about this. There is a feverish electricity humming under your skin, your entire body quivering with unfulfilled stimulation, while your internal landscape is locked in stasis, all woven melody braced against something seething and alien and  _ wrong _ .

When Wilde finishes untying your limbs and runs a fingertip swiftly up your side from hip to armpit, the noise you make is immediate and involuntary, and brings a secretive, warm smile to Wilde’s face.

“Now, lovely,” he murmurs. “I’m going to move you again. Or rather, we are going to move together.”

Wilde bends over you, eclipsing the yellow light of one of the lamps. His palms slide warm and smooth over your hips, down your thighs to curve over your knees, and gently - mindful of the stiffness that creeps over immobile limbs - brings them together again. His hands slide down your calves until they reach your ankles. For a moment, he gently rubs the slightly-abraded skin where the bindings had tightened, soothing the mild sting.

Wilde carefully lowers your feet to the floor, then seats himself beside you and leans to slide his arm beneath your shoulders. You feel his muscles tense, your only hint of his intention, and then he is lifting you to sit upright. His hand cups over your bare shoulder, gently urging you to lean your weight against him, and Wilde hums his approval when you offer no protest in doing so.

“Very good.” Wilde allows his arm to ease downward, and curves his hand over your waist instead. You can feel the soothing movement of his thumb, stroking your back gently as one might a nervous pet. “I believe we had business to discuss. You are feeling well again now, I hope?” There is a hint of sardonic humour in his tone, and Wilde doesn’t wait for your answer, which is just as well. The inexplicable question has sent your mind spiralling.

Are you  _ well _ ? No- no, you are not well at all. You are bewildered and faint, your mind a turmoil of contradictory emotion and impulse. There is a catastrophe in your mind, frozen at the moment of detonation; your body is a quivering mess, excruciatingly overstimulated. And this is a state of affairs brought about entirely by Wilde - his hands, his mouth, his  _ voice  _ \- and you cannot decide whether this is an undesirable outcome, because the enveloping, gentle music that Wilde awakened ( _ implanted?)  _ inside you is warm, even suspended in humming stasis. Comfortingly effortless.

It has, in fact, almost entirely removed any need or urgency for thought or reason. It has cemented the superimposition of Wilde’s will overtop your own and you find this-

-a nearly unmitigated relief.

And Wilde of course is perfectly aware of this.

His arm tightens briefly around your waist in something approaching a brief, encouraging hug. Wilde’s smile when you lift your head to look at him is warm and secretive, and something faintly dangerous lurks behind it.

It is inexpressibly alluring.

Wilde’s voice, too, is warm, and it is insufficient to quell the shiver that it drags over your skin.

“Come along,” Wilde says mildly. “Up you get. Let us go resume our discussion.” And he stands, bringing you up with him. Rising makes your head swim, and you slump against Wilde’s side while the warm haze of your lyrical cocoon is compressed by a swift, if brief bulging of the hissing, dark mass in your mind.

Wilde supports you as, trembling, you regain your balance. Enough of it to be going on with, at least. His arm is a firm band across your back while he guides you back across the sitting room, and it holds your weight when he directs you in a sure, calm voice to sit on the plush rug before the hearth.

“It will warm you,” Wilde says once you are settled there, and gets to his feet. His hand is a brief weight atop your head, fingers for a moment brushing through your hair. “Stay put, pet, and see if that stops the shivering.”

You stare at the low-banked fire in the grate as he walks away from you. The coals smoulder with a dim and hellish red that writhes and dances across their surface in a mesmerising ballet. Now and again the heat strikes a pocket of sap in the remaining wood and sends a whirlwind of sparks skirling up the chimney. The soft crackle and hiss of the fire is soothing. You gaze into it - nearly through it - with an increasing lack of focus and listen to the too-rapid pattern of your heartbeat gradually slow. The battleground in your head seems... remote.

“Warm now, pet?” Wilde ignores your agitation and steps around you to prop a large object on the floor, against the wall just beside the fireplace. At first, taking in its elaborate frame, you think it a painting and frown, puzzled.

When Wilde steps away from it, however, you realise your error with a swift shock.

It is a large mirror.

You stare, and do not recognise the figure staring back at you. It is indeed shivering, despite the fire’s warmth, and its complete nudity is at once dismaying and deeply beguiling. Its eyes are feverishly bright with something that is not fear - the pupils are too wide, black nearly devouring any colour that might otherwise be noticed.

Wilde steps behind you, and the mirror reflects the fabric of his trousers which just brush the skin of your back, making your shoulder twitch; the figure in the mirror does the same, and you sigh. It  _ is _ you, then, unwontedly naked and nigh-dissolute.

The looming conflict in your mind is still distant, still suspended  _ in potentia _ . You wonder for a moment how long it can be maintained thus.

You watch the reflection of Wilde’s hand as he bends to brush a casual touch over your cheek and down your neck. Shapely fingers glide beneath your jaw, curl around your throat, and fall away.

Wilde kneels behind you. You feel the weight of his chest against your back when he leans forward to murmur into your ear, “Watch the mirror, lovely. I want you to watch while we conduct our business. We will discuss the particulars shortly... let me attend to some preliminaries, first.”

You watch Wilde’s reflection reach up and pull the silken cords from around his neck, and a shallow and shivering breath passes your parted lips. The silk is cool between your skin and his warm hands when he grasps you by your upper arms to encourage you up to your knees. Rising as directed, you brace yourself on your heels with your toes digging into the plush pile of the rug underneath you.

A slippery binding in each hand, Wilde slides his palms beneath your arms and gently lifts, his hands moving from armpit to wrist.

“Arms out,” he whispers, and his supporting hands abandon you. “Watch. Keep watching. Don’t look away.”

( _ -look away don’t well you don’t- _ )

It’s a whisper, only a whisper, that licks up and out of the music ( _ still there, still there _ ) then melts immediately back into the larger whole still entangled in your mind.

Wilde grasps one wrist and gently bends your arm until it rests against the small of your back. There is an insistent, albeit painless, stretch of the muscles in your shoulder and across your chest in mild protest of the unusual posture.

His movements are obscured by your body from the mirror’s unflinching reflection, but you can feel Wilde’s hands and the cool silk as he loops and secures the cord at your elbow. The long, loose ends dangle to brush against you nearly to the floor, raising gooseflesh.

Wilde wraps his hand around your other wrist and guides this one, too, to rest behind your back, aligned with the first. It is a matter of moments for him to affix the other cord.

“Nearly finished,” he whispers behind you. “Don’t look away.”

The positioning of your arms has forced both shoulders back, your chest entirely exposed and undefended. Wilde’s fingertips brush your skin as he deftly, expertly braids the silk around both forearms, binding them immovably together behind your back. This accomplished, Wilde drags a single digit up your spine to send a tremor over your shoulders, down your back. The trembling sinks beneath your skin, settles deep to set the deadlocked warmth and darkness in your mind ashiver. ( _ -well trust you aren’t- _ )

Wilde sits back on his haunches. His reflection is shrouded, further away from the firelight that washes your skin in a warm golden glow that gleams in the mirror. You stare at yourself, at the almost-but not-quite-painful stretch of your shoulders, the vulnerable expanse of your chest and abdomen. Lower...

Your flush reddens the firelight’s gold, blossoming pink across every inch of your exposed skin.

Wilde moves closer. You feel rather than see him behind you; his presence is a tangible heat.

His mouth is on your spine, pressing a lingering kiss between your shoulder blades. You feel Wilde’s lips move, although if he is speaking, the words do not reach your ears.

The whispering kiss trails down. You feel his unbound hair sweeping your skin as he descends, a tickling counterpart to the warm heat of Wilde’s mouth as he moves past your tightly-bound arms, and lower still.

Wilde presses a final kiss at the very base of your spine and lingers there, still whispering his soundless litany into your skin. Like the song, like the darkness, like the shiver you can still feel humming somewhere in your mind, it seems somehow to sink deep, slithering through bone and muscle to coil around your simmering core. When finally Wilde lifts his mouth from your skin, you are shallowly panting with the intangible sense of invasion that it imparts.

And like the music, you welcome it in.

You feel Wilde’s hands move along your hips, following the ridge of them, and you follow their reflection in the mirror. His palms sweep forward, over your abdomen and down, and you draw a shaky breath as his fingertips glide close  _ so close so  _ **_close_ ** ... 

...and continue, smoothing down your thighs. Wilde’s shoulder is pressed firmly against your back beneath your bound arms, and his arms bracket your waist as he slips his slender hands between your knees and unhurriedly pushes them apart.

Your breath halts entirely; you let your chin fall forward, eyes closed beneath tightly-furrowed brows. Wilde’s hands pause, and his voice floats up from beside you.

“No. Watch. We have business to discuss, remember? We are nearly ready.  _ Watch _ .”

Perfectly calm, unobjectionably mild, and wholly commanding.

You lift your head. It is impossible to draw a breath, but you can look; you  _ must  _ look. The compulsion is buried so deeply within you now that you can no longer discern the boundary where it melds with your own will.

You watch.

You watch Wilde’s hands - slender, elegant, determined hands - slip again between your knees and push outward, easing your thighs apart inch by apprehensive inch. You watch as the intimate core of you is gently but deliberately unveiled.

There is something revelatory in this casual negation of your privacy. It is a transgressive thrill that blooms from the base of your spine: an oilslick wave of heat that briefly unfocuses your vision and makes your toes curl into the rug.

Having accomplished this particular aim, Wilde’s hands slide up from your knees. He rises behind you, and in the mirror his face looms over your shoulder like a spectre. His smile is a small one, and sharp at the edges.

“Now,” Wilde murmurs, “Down to business.”

One hand drifts up your waist, over your ribs, across your chest; it flattens beneath your shoulder, and it takes very little effort on Wilde’s part to hold you against him. You can feel the pointed pressure of shirt buttons imprinting in the skin of your shoulder blade. The fabric - something fine, something expensive - is a cool counterpoint, almost comforting.

Your eyes are riveted to the mirror. So are Wilde’s. Through the medium of your reflected images, Wilde catches and traps your gaze, pinning you like a moth to cardstock.

His voice is quiet in your ear when he speaks, and his other hand travels from your waist down over your hip.

“You were sent here,” Wilde whispers again, and this time continues. “ _ Who sent you? _ ”

( _ -the deadlock breaks; the pressure of darkness in your mind suddenly expands, straining to force its own release, and there are words in it, hissing and venomous- _ )

His hand eases lower, deft fingers tracing idle sigils on the skin of your upper thigh and then inward.

“You are not who you say you are.  _ Who are you? _ ”

( _ -hissing and venomous and  _ **_wrong_ ** _ and it scrapes like jagged fingernails against the lyrical buffer that envelops you- _ )

Wilde’s hand glides yet further inward, calmly drifting between your legs. He lightly strokes already-overstimulated flesh with the backs of his fingers, and you suck in a shuddering gasp.

He whispers into your ear once more.

“You were sent here.  _ Who sent you? _ ”

( _ -envelops you, a host of singing, braided ouroboroi uplifted and interwoven against the billowing, oily black- _ )

Wilde exhales a heated and lingering breath against your neck. His hand leaves you briefly, vanishing into the shadows just behind him. When his touch returns, his exploring fingers are coated in something warm and slick. Long and slender and strong between your thighs, they drift lower yet to press against your entrance, although they do not yet invade; they invoke the memory of his wicked tongue.

Wilde whispers, “You are not who you say you are.  _ Who are you? _ ”

( _ -oily black and massive and no longer pushing against the plaited-song barrier but sending grimy tendrils seeking over it- _ )

You gasp and arch your back when Wilde curves a single finger to slip it inside you. His arm across your chest holds you tightly against him, while gently but unrelentingly he pushes deeper, deeper, until he can press no further. You clench involuntarily around Wilde’s finger and hear him release a soft breath.

He murmurs on the exhalation, “Someone has sent you here.  _ Who sent you? _ ”

( _ -seeking over it, unfolding like some bloated blossom to engulf your warm fortress of light and song, and there is an answering bloom of spellsong harmony like a hymn- _ )

In the mirror, you can see  _ everything _ , kneeling splayed and unguarded as you are. You see and feel the languid movement of Wilde’s hand as he slowly slides his single finger out of you; you see the warm firelight glint off the slick moisture coating it; you see his lazy reversal when he eases it, and a second along with it, back inside you to trigger another gasp, another shiver. Deftly and skillfully he teases your pleasure out, and you watch Wilde’s hand as though to look away from it means to die.

“You are here for a reason.  _ Why are you here? _ ”

( _ -like a hymn, but there is more darkness than light now, an eclipse of sickly black that drags with it hate and dreadful triumph and the first glimmerings of something remembered, something stirring under smothering strata of things forgotten and buried- _ )

A third finger joins the first two; together they plunge  _ deep  _ again and again and  _ again  _ as though seeking to touch the beginnings of your pleasure where it smoulders in your belly. You cry out, and Wilde brings his other hand up from your shoulder to curve around your breathless throat, and you are suddenly aware with explicit clarity how  _ large _ Wilde’s hand is. He applies no pressure. Just the sight of it in the mirror is enough to render you nearly paralyzed... although it is not with fear. You clench again unthinkingly around the intrusion of his fingers, and in Wilde’s reflection, his eyes grow hooded.

“You are not who you think you are.  _ Who are you? _ ”

( _ -forgotten and buried but these half-remembered things are rising through the dust, gaining clarity as they surface, their edges hooking into the howling black swarm and melding with it while underneath the smothering darkness, the glimmering chain of melody and nonsense words condenses, coalescing from loosely-tied threads into a compact cocoon, a hard and bright and sheltering shell against which the darkness batters and shrieks and screams its rage, fed by memories you do not remember having, cannot recall experiencing- _ )

Your eyes have closed; you no longer see your reflection, nor Wilde’s; even the banked light from the nearby hearth is being pushed away by the swollen awfulness in your head, even as the answering warmth of your pleasure builds low and deep inside you. You are aware that Wilde is moving, has slid his fingers out of your body and let his hand fall from your throat; that he is in fact no longer actually holding you at all. Instead, you can feel his nimble hands behind you, swiftly unbinding your arms.

The muscles in your shoulders and chest contract almost painfully when Wilde gently pushes your arms forward. You have no time to process this before he lifts you up and turns you around to face him, your back to the mirror.

“Look at me.”

Softly spoken, it is even so not a request, and there is enough compulsion still coiled within you to nudge you into compliance.

You open your eyes and meet Wilde’s gaze and there is a glimmer there, something perched on the balance between real and unreal, where magic dwells. ( _ -the darkness hisses and seethes and impossibly screams into the silence of your thoughts it recognises that glimmer it knows what the glint means what it  _ **_intends_ ** _ and suddenly suddenly there is not only fury but  _ **_fear_ ** _ and the stream of unfamiliar memory has become a cataract sweeping aside the terrain of your mindscape tearing it savagely from too-shallow roots and at the centre of it all the glimmering core that is  _ **_you_ ** _ howls at the onslaught and the revelation- _ )

There is also, in Wilde’s penetrating gaze, something like sympathy.

“We will continue.” His voice is calm, cool in contrast to the feverish maelstrom in your head. “I need the answers to these questions.  _ And so do you _ .”

You know the truth of this. You are certain of nothing, not even your own lived experience, and the foundations and cornerstones of your life are shifting out from beneath you like tide-swept sand and if whatever Wilde is doing will at least tell you  _ why _ , then- 

“Shall we continue?” Barely a whisper, spoken close to your ear.

You shudder and try not to sob. “ _ Yes _ .”

Wilde nods, just the once.

“I ask you again,” he whispers, “to trust me.” His hands fall away. You are aware of their movement, vague and unspecified, but you cannot look away from his eyes to ascertain what he is doing.

“I gave you my word,” Wilde continues, still whispering, “that I would not harm you. I give it again.”

His hands come back to your hips and you imagine their imprint in your flesh, seared there by their warmth. Wilde urges you up, draws you forward towards himself.

“Much of this will not be pleasant,” he breathes, “and for that I sincerely apologise. I will... mitigate, as best I can. What was done can be undone, but the undoing is never easy.”

A spike of fear arrows down your spine, and you are uncertain whether it is truly yours or whether it finds its origin in the chaos of shrieking darkness through which you can still sense, here and there, the condensed, brightly-gleaming ball of spellbinding song.

“Trust me.”

Wilde’s hands guide your hips forward and down, and you realise what he had been doing moments before. You can feel the fabric of his trousers against your thighs as you settle, but they are unfastened. You feel his erection pressing against your entrance, startling but... but not dismaying.

He whispers, “I will see you through this.”

Gravity and the weight of Wilde’s hands pull you downward and you cry out at the bright burst of sensation. There is no pain - Wilde has already seen to that, taken his time arousing your body for this with consummate skill. You feel yourself open for him, feel the firm length of his cock ease inside you, inch by inch until you are fully seated in his lap, impaled.

Wilde waits a moment, watching your face intently. The moment you acclimate to the fullness of him inside you, he slides his hands beneath your thighs to urge them up and over his hips. Repositioned, you feel his cock bury itself within you just that much more; it tugs a gasp from your dry throat and dry mouth.

Supporting you with hands and forearms behind your back, Wilde shifts to draw his hips back - not far, given your positioning, but far enough that he can follow this with a short thrust forward that sends sparks spiraling along your nerves.

Wilde’s mouth is beside your ear, and he whispers, “You were sent here.” ( _ -the darkness and the memories are blurring together, and the darkness hisses and the memories simply  _ **_are_ ** _ , simply exist undeniably- _ ) “Who sent you?”

He punctuates the question with another easeful withdrawal, another sharper thrust back into you.

“You are not who you say you are.” ( _ -and at the heart of the black tempest, the music stirs as well, snagged by the calm and relentless voice with its incomprehensible and bewitching power- _ ) “Who are you?”

Again, Wilde draws his hips back slowly, letting you feel the full sensation of him easing free of you, of the empty space left behind, and again, more swiftly, more dramatically, his intrusive thrust refilling the void.

“You were sent here.” ( _ -magic it must be magic of course it is magic it is the power that comes of story and melody and it is woven around the core of you to keep the venomous dark at bay while the simple fact of real memory swells and displaces the dark- _ ) “Who sent you?”

Wilde’s pace is gradually increasing, peeling away suppression and inhibition to expose the smouldering coals of your completion, every thrust breathing them brighter, closer to actual flame.

“You are not who you say you are.” ( _ -and the inky shadows swirl and expand and rise, billowing to fill your head, all of it, every cell and corner and crack and hollow but the music and Wilde’s voice slither sinuously throughout it and the memories implacably push and push and  _ **_push_ ** _ - _ ) “Who are you?”

His hands have moved from your back to underneath you, supporting you with his arms under your ass, his warm hands at the small of your back. Now when Wilde withdraws, he lifts you slightly, and when he thrusts gravity draws you down, tugging out of you a soft moan each time.

“Someone has sent you here.” Wilde’s voice has not changed, not in pitch, not in volume; it is the same unflinching calm. ( _ -as the darkness shrieks its rage the seeking threads of Wilde’s voice his song his magic touches the core of safety deep in your mind and it too begins an inexorable expansion, pushing with the memories, pushing against the poison void, pushing pushing pushing- _ ) “Who sent you?”

You do not know the answer and Wilde does not wait for it in any case; he does not expect it. He’s already said as much ( _ “I need the answers to these questions. And so do you.” _ ) and as each thrust fills you his intricately-woven spellwork clarifies how little you actually know. About yourself. Your history and experience. Your life to this point.

“You are here for a reason.” ( _ -the pressure intensifies, swirling maelstrom and memory interlaced with melody all pushing up, pushing out, pushing against you and away from you at once in a dizzying contradiction- _ ) “Why are you here?”

Wilde’s hands are digging into you, holding tightly while he arches his hips up against you, plunges his cock as deeply inside you as is physically possible again and again and  _ again _ and with every surge the coiled heat in your belly swells like the storm in your mind, harder, brighter, closer to the surface. You are panting, gasping for breath, clutching Wilde with your legs around his hips and your arms around his shoulders.

“You are not,” Wilde growls in your ear, his own voice rougher now, finally losing the calm deliberateness he had so far maintained. “You are not who you say you are.” ( _ -swelling like the fire in your belly, fire and smoke in your brain, seething hate and rage and fear and singing warmth and safety and reality and reality and reality- _ )  _ “Who are you?” _

Wilde leans forward, supporting your weight as you tilt, then tip, then fall backward, your legs still locked around his hips. He moves as well, remaining buried inside you as he swiftly repositions you both. Wilde braces himself with his hands on the floor above your shoulders, his arms bracketing your head; his dark hair, long and unbound, shrouds your face.

Wilde is still staring at you, staring  _ into _ you.

_ “Who. Are you?” _

( _ -the pressure is impossible all smoke and heat and the shining sickly rainbow sheen of oil on black water and spellbound memory compressing it, pushing pushing pushing as though to crush it against itself- _ )

The fabric of Wilde’s shirt - now as hot and sweat-slick as his body - slips against your chest with every thrust of Wilde’s hips. His pace is steadily increasing, growing ragged with his breath, and you can feel the first glimmering of orgasm beginning to drag its electric fingers along your spine. You are  _ full _ , your fullness reinforced with every repeated penetration, and it gives you a focus, something to cling to while in your mind the onslaught rages.

“Not long now,” Wilde whispers, and bends to touch his forehead gently to yours in a moment of unexpected intimacy ( _ -a thrill of melody answers this, shimmering upward as though trying to touch him- _ ). “Not long now. You must do one more thing for me, pet. One more thing, and we will have our answers.”

Your thighs ache; every muscle thrums with tension where you clutch him hard against you, tightly enough to restrict his movement.

“I need you,” Wilde whispers, “to  _ let go _ .”

The scintillating electricity stretching along your nerves retracts, constricting itself into a burning ball deep in your belly. Wilde has abandoned any sense of rhythm or grace. Pinned by your legs, he snaps his hips forward as forcefully as possible without the benefit of withdrawal.

“Do that for me, pet.”

Wilde’s whispered voice is shaking; your answering moan is choked, staccato, breathless.

“You have my word.”

The moan shifts in pitch to become a high, rough keening that scrapes its way up your throat and out. You feel yourself skating along a molecule-thin edge of shattering.

_ “Let go.” _

The cracks fly wide, spiderwebbing out from the fragments of your composure. Wilde plunges deep, deep inside you and the keening breath becomes a scream, ragged-edged and thin of breath. It ends in something that is nearly a sob as your body ignites, all the tinder Wilde has carefully stoked finally ablaze and scorching every nerve with trembling ecstasy.

Wilde has dropped to brace on his elbows now, his hands cradling your head, fingers tangled in your hair. Your hips angle up to meet his as Wilde’s thrusts grow erratic, his cock digging deep, fast, rapidly pistoning for a few brief moments until he too fractures at the apex of one last plunge into you. The abrupt surge of raw power that pours out of him sweeps over you like wildfire.

There are words in Wilde’s cry. You can hear them dimly but they reach you muddled and blurred, as though you are listening from underwater to the song of someone safe above the surface.

It is not water in which you are drowning.

On the heels of your orgasm, the roiling black mass of smoke and fury in your mind is abruptly  _ yanked _ away - the pressure of it is suddenly gone, leaving behind the entangled threads of a song to which you are already forgetting the words, the melody slipping from your drowsy grasp and dissipating like warm breath from a cold mirror.

Wilde is no longer on top of you, you are vaguely aware. You can still feel him, still kneeling between your legs, although he has withdrawn from you entirely, leaving only a trembling hand pressed to your abdomen, holding you still.

_ Warm breath from a cold mirror. _

Surrounding you both, something  _ evil _ is straining for freedom. You feel it more than see it, just as you feel the restraining bands of Wilde’s magic holding it trapped. He is still singing, and you know this only because you are watching his mouth in dazed fascination, watching the shape of his words as they are sung and added to the spell.

_ Warm breath from a cold mirror. _

Wilde flings his other hand out, stretched toward something behind you. You can almost see the tangling threads of his power twining around his arm, his wrist, his slender and strong fingers.

_ Warm breath from a cold mirror. _

Mirror.

Your realisation comes at the same moment Wilde’s song crescendos. You feel the surge of power, feel the occult backlash from the poison surrounding you, feel the snap and spark of the contest of wills-

-you feel it when the roiling evil fractures and fails and is swept backward from around you both. There is a sound, faint and far off, of glass breaking.

And then, for you, there is nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All that remains is to tuck in the loose ends and quietly close the door. I'll post the epilogue soon, my lovelies.


	6. Epilogue - Fallow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It is always the unreadable that occurs.” - Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, it is suspected
> 
> Definitions:  
> "fallow": 1) (adj) tilled and harrowed but left unseeded; (n.) land left to grow uncultivated; 2) dormant; inactive

The thing about mirrors, Wilde thinks as he stares into one, is that  _ reflection  _ is a word with many connotations.

Behind him on the settee, a naked figure sleeps deeply, unmoving and exhausted. In front of him, propped against the stone fireplace, a framed pane of mercury-backed glass peels away time and magical obfuscation from a mass of black and poisonous ill intent.

It is not, in truth, a visual experience. It’s magic - trapped magic, to be sure, but magic nevertheless, and magic (for Wilde, at least) has always been a sensual experience.

Another word with a multiplicity of meanings. In this case, it embraces them all.

As it was Wilde’s power that trapped the blackened ball of concealed memory and deceptive sorcery, that connection hums through his blood and brain and saturates his awareness with the entirety of the story. Event, intent... everything, however carefully hidden, is stripped down and exposed for him.

Like an undetonated grenade, the unconscious scientist behind him had been strategically placed without any awareness or intention of their own. The spellwork had been expertly, carefully laid down to be nearly undetectable, awaiting only the trigger: the bizarre, impossible seed Wilde had briefly revealed.

Why  _ that  _ thing is so important is still unclear, but Wilde will, he knows, track down that information as well. Eventually, he will know everything, or at least enough.

Wilde sighs, and even that breath tears jaggedly at his raw throat. He gets to his feet. 

With a wince and a hand pressed to the mirror’s surface, Wilde manages to whisper a brief phrase. There is, in the air, a swift hint of song, and the mirror’s silvery backing flares white-hot, then flakes off the glass in a powdery ash.

He leaves it where it is. Wilde fishes in a pocket and pulls out a small, river-smoothed stone. He stares at it for a moment then lifts it close to his mouth.

“It’s time,” he whispers.

The crackle of magic a moment later is, for Wilde’s exhausted mind, a tangible relief.

* * *

“Hades, then?”

Oscar nods once, just slightly, and winces when he does. Zolf closes the door, then bolts it for good measure. He crosses the kitchen and cups a hand beneath Oscar’s chin, tipping his face up to examine him for a moment.

“Glad you had a teleport,” he finally grumbles, and lets go of Oscar’s face. “You’d’ve been miserable on a ship’s crossing.”

“I’m miserable anyway.”

Oscar’s voice is ragged and barely louder than a whisper. Zolf, his back to Oscar while he fills the kettle, scowls. “Overdid it. That’s gonna wreck you one day.”

Zolf doesn’t have to be looking to see Oscar’s shrug, the casual one-shouldered dismissal of concern that is the man’s default response to anything like concern for his well-being.

“Had to be done.”

It’s Zolf’s turn to wince, in sympathy at the jagged edges of Oscar’s voice. He knows what it costs a bard to lose that, even if only temporarily. It is, after all, the source and instrument of his power. Without it, Oscar is little more than a glorified paper-pusher.

Zolf sets the kettle on the hob and rejoins Oscar at the table. There are papers spread out there, covered in his elegant handwriting.

“Report?”

Oscar shakes his head, then irritably reaches up to tuck away errant tendrils of his dark hair still too short to be tied back with the rest.

“Letter,” he rasps. “They deserve to know, when they’ve recovered.”

Zolf scowls, and Oscar leans back in his chair, for the moment laying his pen aside.

“They really didn’t know,” he says, nearly a whisper. “I thought that might be the case, but there was always the chance... But they didn’t know. The Hades lot are happy enough to use any tool they can, and if it breaks..."

Oscar drags a hand over his face, leaving an inky smear.

“One of many reasons we are doing this work,” he says grimly, and takes up his pen again.

* * *

There is sunlight on your face.

It is the first thing you notice.

The second thing you notice is that you  _ hurt _ . All over, a full-body ache of exhaustion.

The third thing you notice is a presence beside your bed ( _ bed? When did you - weren’t you on the floor- _ ) and you jerk upright with a cry.

Or you try to. The attempt sets your head spinning, and your voice is a raw croak, rough and subdued.

The figure beside you shifts, leans forward.

“Wouldn’t try that just yet,” the dwarf tells you, not unkindly. “You’ve been through a lot.”

Dwarf? When did you meet a dw-

Like moving, trying to think is a Herculean task, and you close your eyes and give up the attempt. You feel a rough-skinned but warm hand gently pat yours where it lies on the coverlet.

“Take your time. You’ll have a bit of road ahead of you for healin’, but you’ll get there. When you’re a bit steadier, there’s a letter waitin’ for you. It’ll have your answers.”

You hear a chair scrape back along the floor and then the sound of the dwarf getting to his feet.

“Anyway, I only stayed to be sure you came through it. You’re awake now, and we’ll be gettin’ along. Take care of yourself.  _ Be careful. _ ”

His words of warning imparted, the dwarf leaves you alone.

After a few minutes, you turn your head. There is indeed an envelope on the small table beside the bed, a fat one tied with black ribbon. You consider it for a long time.

When you fall asleep again, the ribbon is still tied, the envelope sealed. You drift off on the thought that you may be better off not knowing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end, beautiful friends. There is no more to this story, at least not from me: what comes next will be determined by the "you" we have followed along with, and no-one else.
> 
> If you have enjoyed this, I am glad, and grateful to have had you along for the ride. If you have not, I am very sorry and I hope that in future I shall craft something more suited to your tastes. Everyone has their own collection of preferences, after all, and while one tries, one doesn't always hit the mark. The only thing for it is to try again!
> 
> Thank you for reading.
> 
> “The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.” - Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wilde, for sure and certain (The Importance Of Being Earnest)

**Author's Note:**

> For the wretched souls along for the wild(e) ride: thank you for being an endless fount of inspiration. I hold you blameless for my crimes.


End file.
